


Dead and Fashionably Late

by DeMarcos



Series: Suit Up [3]
Category: Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits - David Wong, Zoey Punches The Future In The Dick - David Wong
Genre: Age Difference, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Assassination Plot(s), Assassins & Hitmen, Attempt at Humor, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/M, Intrigue, Non-Linear Narrative, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27553993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeMarcos/pseuds/DeMarcos
Summary: Somebody did a bad, bad thing to Will. Hilariously depressing fallout ensues.
Relationships: Zoey Ashe/Will Blackwater
Series: Suit Up [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992787
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8





	Dead and Fashionably Late

**Author's Note:**

> I REGRET NOTHING.

Zoey stared down at the body of Will Blackwater.

She shuddered at the unique sensation of being both utterly trapped inside her crawling skin and feeling as though her soul had fled her body, to somewhere miles away, leaving her an empty, lifeless husk.

Like Will.

It didn’t even look like him. His preposterously white skin had taken on a sallow coloring, what remained of his lips were a distressing pale blue. The coroner had closed the one eye Will still had left, but underneath, Zoey knew it lacked the intelligent gleam she’d come to associate with them. All that remained now was just a mutilated shell, the only thing left of the man she loved.

The Suits were behind her talking to the coroner, quietly asking questions about what he had found, but a weird ringing noise had filled Zoey’s ears, muffling their combined voices to the point of being incoherent.

Will should have been moving, full of his usual vigor but he just laid there, motionless. Not even in sleep was he so still. The creeping horrors became too much for Zoey. She felt claustrophobic in the morgue, the bitter cold lighting chilling her to the bone. She needed to leave immediately, no longer able to stand there looking at Will, seeing what some monster had done to him.

Completely numb, Zoey felt herself walking away, around the table and toward the door, though she didn’t remember commanding her body to move.

She heard Budd say something, but was sharply cut off by Echo, silencing him.

Zoey exited the morgue, turning down the narrow hallway that would lead her back outside. She heard footsteps behind her, Wu following to make sure nothing happened to her, by her own hand or someone else’s. She didn’t acknowledge his presence, keeping her legs moving until she pushed through the double doors out into the parking lot.

The brisk night air rushed over her, the technicolor skyline of Tabula Ra$a clashing with the sodium chemical glow of the overhead parking lot lights, the orange on the damp asphalt clashing with the neon of the various advertisements coursing between the displays of the skyscrapers.

Deflating, Zoey laid down on the pavement, no longer able to keep upright. The cool pavement made her shiver, her skin already cold from the chill of the morgue. Maybe if she stayed on the ground long enough, she’d die from the cold and they’d just put her on the slab next to Will. That didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Wu jogged across the parking lot, stopping beside her. “Zoey, are you okay?” He asked, as though he hadn’t just watched her identify Will’s body, shaken to the core by the sight of him.

“Yeah, no… I just need to… lie down for a bit.” She stretched out her arms and legs as she peered up at the sky, the stars rendered invisible due to the overwhelming glare of the city lights. She wanted to be invisible, too.

“You’re going to get wet like that.” Wu said. “You want me to take you to the car, so you can lie down in the backseat?”

Zoey squeezed her eyes shut. “Of _all_ the things I care about right now, getting my clothes wet is _not_ one of them.” It felt like she’d left her heart in that room with Will, leaving a gaping hole inside of her. Clothes were the least of her concerns.

“Okay, sorry…” He said, tone genuinely apologetic. “I’ll, uh… just be over here if you need me.”

She _needed_ Will. She needed him to not have a crater in his skull leaking his brains out onto a metal coroner’s slab.

Zoey stared up at the sky, her mind a jumble of all that she needed and wanted from Will, things she could no longer have, things that would no longer happen now that he was gone. Things that _would_ happen once the news of his death broke on Blink.

Is this how he’d felt when Arthur had died? Helpless and lost in a sea of darkness? No wonder he’d been so curt and rude to her when they first met, needing answers, wanting to understand the batshit insane circumstances behind his mentor’s death, only to be at the mercy of a bastard daughter who didn’t care one iota about what he wanted.

 _Oh, how times had changed_.

Zoey heard the doors to the morgue open and the footsteps of the Suits approach her. After a moment, she felt Echo lie down beside her.

“You’re gonna get wet.” Zoey said, voice low and hollow.

“I don’t mind.” Echo replied, sounding just as torn up as she was.

Zoey sucked in a shuddering breath, trying to force out the question that had burrowed inside of her, but the asking would admit to this new reality, a reality in which Will no longer existed. She exhaled. “Do they know what… who?”

“Not really.” Budd answered with a world-weary sigh. “That meeting spot was chosen for a reason, not a lot of people wandering around, so no Blink. But his car was picked clean, as was his wallet. Whoever did it made off with his cash but left his phone and car behind, most likely so they wouldn’t be tracked. Kowalski’s team are going over the scene now but… probably some drugged out piece of shit looking to finance their next OD.”

“Doesn’t seem real, does it?” Echo asked quietly.

Andre scoffed. “Hell _no_ , it doesn’t seem real. Never thought Will would be the one of us to get ganked right out on the street.”

There was a dull thud, from Budd smacking Andre’s chest with the back of his hand. “Time and a place.” He chided.

“My bad.” Andre said. “Just talkin’ out my ass, Zoey, I didn’t mean-”

Zoey shook her head, feeling the hair pull against the pavement. “No, it’s fine. You guys knew him longer than I did, you and Arthur were his family. It should be you all down here, not me.” Her eyes tracked a plane flying overhead and she felt just as distant from the world as it was. “I don’t even know what his last wishes were...” It never seemed like something that needed to be discussed, despite the near constant threat of one or both of them meeting a gruesome end. God, she was going to have to update her will, to have Will removed as her beneficiary, now that he was… Zoey moved a hand to rub at her stomach, feeling the ache of another thing she would never have.

“That don’t mean nothing, Zoey.” Budd said and she watched him appear in her line of sight as he leaned over to look down at her properly. “You were his family just as much as we were, no matter how much time y’all had. Hell, he cared about _all_ of us more than he did his _actual_ family.”

They’d had more than four years together, but that didn’t compare to the nearly twenty years the Suits had together, especially not when nearly two of those years, she’d been a persistent thorn in his side.

Echo craned her head up to look at Budd and Andre. “Do you think his dad is still alive?”

“Shit, if he is, you know damn well Will wouldn’t want him at the funeral and that old fart-bag wouldn’t show up anyway.” Andre answered.

The word funeral pierced through Zoey like a white-hot knife and a pathetic groan escaped her throat. “That’s enough time on the ground. I need to go be somewhere _other_ than here.”

She held up her hands and Budd lifted her up off the ground. Zoey then bent down to help Echo up, but when she was on her feet, she didn’t let go of her hold, instead pulling Zoey into a tight hug.

“Forget about everything else,” Echo whispered in Zoey’s ear, petting her damp hair, “don’t think you can’t be weak right now… just let yourself grieve.”

“What about you?” Zoey asked quietly, hugging Echo back as though her life depended on it. “I don’t even know what to say… I’ve never had anyone close to me die.” Arthur didn’t count, that was for damn certain, and Zoey had barely known her mom’s parents before they’d died. It was new and awful, and Zoey hated it.

“You don’t have to say anything at all. I know what’s in your heart, and you know what’s in ours.” Echo slowly released Zoey and pointedly looked her in the eye. They stared at each other for a moment, Zoey seeing every unsaid thing in Echo’s heart. Her love for Will, the boiling anger at his murder, the pain of his passing, her worry for Zoey, the worry for herself, it was all laid bare in her eyes.

A single tear dropped down Echo’s cheek and Zoey reached up to brush away. Echo leaned into the touch, smiling sadly.

When Echo finally let go of Zoey, she turned to Budd and Andre. Both men, who had been watching their emotional display, seemed particularly affected. Budd had a wistful expression on his face, and Andre was dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief.

It had started as a trio, them and Will, then joined by Arthur (when he’d lured them to Tabula Ra$a with the promises of riches) and finally Echo. Arthur was gone, now Will, and though they were a trio again, it would never be the same. None of them would ever be the same.

Zoey hugged Andre first, holding the big man as best she could, and he folded himself around her. Large hands smoothed over her back as he rumbled off soft words of comfort. She could feel his shoulders shaking as he tried to wrestle control of his emotions, wanting to put on a brave face for her.

Budd took off his cowboy hat before letting Zoey embrace him, to not only pay proper respects to his boss but to Will as well. “He was a damn fine man.” He murmured into her ear. “And he was lucky to have you whip his narrow ass into shape. Hell, we all are.”

Zoey knew if she laughed, she’d only end up crying, so she did nothing.

She left the three of them standing in the morgue parking lot, Wu guiding her toward the car, holding open the passenger door and helping her get in. He hopped in on the driver’s side and set the navigation to take her home. She thought of going back to that big house, an echo chamber of all her memories with Will, and the thought made her stomach churn violently.

“No,” She said suddenly, “take me to Will’s.”

Wu hesitated. “Are you sure? There’s no security set up at his place… if this is a personal thing for whoever did this to him, I can’t in good conscience let you stay there.”

Zoey turned fierce eyes on him, daring him to try stopping her. “His security is just fine, and honestly, if they’re coming after all of us, I _hope_ they show up. Give me a chance to punch their dick into their asshole.” He looked like he was going to argue but she held up a hand to cut him off. “Just do this for me, _please_.”

They drove through the city in silence. Zoey worried her thumbnail with her teeth in a nervous gesture. There was a knot in her chest, taut and painful, making it hard to breathe. A bright light pierced through the windows and she glanced around at the skyline, broadcasting Will’s death. The knot cinched tighter, her lungs burning.

“Don’t look at it.” Wu ordered, tersely, tapping at the navigation to take them on a route that would bypass the skyscrapers.

The silence in the car became oppressive.

“For what it’s worth,” Wu started, just for something to say to distract Zoey from Will’s image, projected hundreds of feet in the air, “I never disliked him. Actually respected him a lot, everything he did with your father, everything he helped you do.”

Zoey hummed vaguely.

He continued on, the need for confession overriding her disinterest, “And it was never personal, my opinions about you two. You were both consenting adults, it’s not like I could stop you. It was just… I saw the both of you and thought if Rizza brought home a man that much older than her-”

“Are you telling me you don’t trust your daughter to make decisions about her own life?” Zoey sniped, arching a brow at him. She really didn’t want to get into this conversation with Wu. He’d been the reason Will had never made a move on her until after her accident, because Wu had confronted him months earlier about their age difference and how unseemly it was, in his opinion. Well, not the _only_ reason. There was of course the dynamic between employer and employee, the one Will had accused her of abusing with Armando, but Will had established a rigorous system to help them bypass that dynamic after they’d gotten together. But it has mostly been the Wu thing.

“But I bet you trust your sons without question, because they have penises and it’s totally okay to date a much younger woman then, right?”

Wu shook his head defensively. “No, it’s not like that all. Rizza is smarter than I’ll ever be, and I trust her implicitly. What I _don’t_ trust is the kind of men who would take advantage of young girls, of their naivety, and abuse them. Look around you. Go anywhere in this city and you’ll see rich old men taking advantage of a young girl’s need to eat, to have a home, feed their kids.”

“You ever think it’s the girls are taking advantage of those men, making a living off their complete inability to control themselves? Sex makes men stupid, and women learned a long time ago how to take advantage of that stupidity to pay the bills.” Her mom kept a roof over their heads with the money earned from idiots stuffing their hard-earned dollars down the g-string of a woman who did nothing more than put it and some makeup on.

Wu snorted softly. “You calling Will stupid?”

“Damn right I am. Stupid as the day is long. Stupid and loving and…” She trailed off, Will’s smiling face flashing in her mind, superimposed over the image of him in the morgue. The knot felt like it was going to suffocate her. “Besides, I’m quite capable of doing whatever, or _whoever_ , I please, _and_ I have way more money that he does, so if anything, I’m taking advantage of _him_.” Zoey paused. “ _Was_.” She corrected painfully.

Wu cleared his throat. “Well… he agreed with you, if it makes you feel better. Not at first. At first, he tried throwing men at you, thinking one of them would stick. Will’s a lot of things, but he’s not a homewrecker.”

Zoey thought back to the personal trainer he had hired for her years before, so she’d have an outlet for some much needed stress release, or so she’d thought at the time. It never occurred to her that he’d done it out of some misguided attempt to protect his own feelings, to protect _her_ from his feelings.

They’d never really discussed it. Just like they never really discussed his wife or Echo, or Armando or the sweaty biker she’d picked up the night she’d accidentally OD’d in the bar bathroom. It was the past and Will had only been interested in their future.

She felt tears welling up in her eyes, blurring the world around her.

“But in the end,” Wu continued, “he totally ignored my advice and let himself get pulled into your orbit. And no, that’s _not_ a fat joke.” Wu leaned back in the driver’s seat. “Just couldn’t resist the pull, either of you. Kinda like it was meant to be. And if I’m being _totally_ honest… I’m glad he ignored me.” He offered her a soft half-smile. “You both proved me wrong.”

Zoey sniffled. “Of course we did. Because you’re an ass clown.”

Wu reached across the center console to place a hand on her shoulder. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

*~*~*

When they pulled up to Will’s house, Wu made Zoey wait outside while he cleared it, room by room. Will lived in Beaver Heights, several blocks away from the Casa, but it was one of the more understated houses in the area. Unlike Arthur and the other billionaires in the area, there were no elaborate landscaping or ostentatious edifices to be found. It was beautiful, but simple and plain, just as Will liked it.

Wu made certain she activated the security system, told her he’d have someone from Ashe Security posted out on the street, and made her promise to call if she heard anything suspicious, before leaving her in the foyer, alone.

It was exactly the same as it had been the night before, yet somehow, it felt entirely different to Zoey, as if Will had taken his presence in the house with him, leaving it just as empty as she felt. She wandered into Will’s office, just to the left of the main staircase, and moved to the other side of his desk. Most of the rooms were sparingly furnished, as he didn’t entertain a lot of visitors, but the office was his domain, his sanctuary.

He didn’t collect lamps or stitch needlepoint pillows like she’d once imagined. Will’s hobby was antique pistols. One wall of the office was lined with glass cases, floor displays and wall-mounted ones, full of the kinds of weapons he refused to carry on him personally. The first time he had her over and she’d laid eyes on his little collection, Zoey pointed out that it was a strange contradiction. Will had merely brushed it off as an eccentric quirk and continued giving her the tour.

Zoey sat down in Will’s chair. All the chairs, including his, were well-worn and comfortable, the desk bearing signs of having been used for well over a decade, scratches and moisture rings marring the wood. Next to the display screen and neat stacks of paperwork were an array of old-fashioned framed photographs. Will with Budd and Andre from their military days, the three of them with Arthur all smiling, one with just Will and Arthur of the two of them shaking hands at some event, and another after Echo had joined the Suits. Beside them were three others, a young Will with his mother, Will with his wife, and one of herself with Will.

Zoey picked up the photograph and stared at it. It had been a private thing, a picture she’d taken just for him after he’d requested something to add to the photo gallery on his desk. It was the two of them, hugging and smiling at each other, eyes shining with love.

The knot tightened around her lungs so viciously Zoey gasped and exhaled a miserable sob. The sob turned into an agonizing scream that filled the office before she collapsed into tears on the desk, her face pressed against the glass of the picture frame.

* * *

“You know, I don’t think I can approve any more of these covert meetings you like to attend so much if I’m gonna be pregnant.” Zoey said, hands on her hips.

Will, who had been standing in front of his bedroom mirror adjusting his tie, looked as if he were about to have a heart attack, the color draining from his face so quickly she thought he was going to pass out. “P-pregnant?” He stuttered dumbfoundedly, staring at her reflection in the mirror with wide eyes. “You’re… pregnant?”

“What? No, I _thought_ I was pregnant, but I was just late.” It would have been her luck, too, her birth control failing at the exact worst time. Or rather the _best_ time, when she had been panicky and counted back on the calendar to when it could have happened. It had been a memorable weekend. Stench Machine had been scarred for life.

Will’s soul reentered his body, and he exhaled a shaky sigh of relief.

“But it got me thinking,” Zoey barreled on over his mini freak out, “when I _do_ get pregnant, and trust me, I say _when_ , not _if_ , because it’s a definite possibility, Mr. Insatiable Libido, I don’t know how I’d feel about you meeting unsavory characters at undisclosed locales, doing all sorts of dangerous things all the time.”

Will smoothed down his tie and leaned over to look at a box on his armoire containing all his tie-clips. He chose the one with tiny diamonds in a pavé setting that Zoey thought was ridiculously gaudy but not-so-secretly loved, because she’d been the one to buy it for him, as a birthday present. It also happened to set off the silver of his suit nicely. He clipped it on before tucking the end of the tie beneath his waistcoat. He then spun gracefully on his heel to fix Zoey with a frank look. “You’re one to talk. I believe it was just _last_ month we had to talk down that Armenian gangster from slitting your throat after you managed to insult his mother, his brother, and his daughters in just _one_ sentence.”

Zoey threw her hands up in the air defensively. “Hey, that was in public, in broad daylight, where _everyone_ would have seen it. You go out to these places without anyone knowing where you are and,” Zoey shrugged, trying to play it casual and not like she’d spent a few days on an emotional rollercoaster thinking she was going to have his kid, “I dunno, I just worry we’ll find you dead in a ditch somewhere.”

He closed the distance between them and lifted a finger to trace it along her neck, over the almost invisible mark where the tip of the mob boss’ knife had nicked her skin. It had healed nicely but Will could still it, like it had been seared into his memory. “Unlike you, I try my hardest to keep myself out of scenarios that involve dead bodies. Mine included.”

“Yet somehow, they _still_ tend to pile up around you. Strange…”

“Why Ms. Ashe, it sounds as though you don’t approve of my unorthodox methods. Even when they get results.”

Zoey harrumphed. “Maybe we should switch to the rhythm method, before we get a _different_ kind of result.”

Will chuckled and leaned down to kiss her. “You should know by now that the one person you don’t have to worry about is me. I wouldn't have earned the sobriquet of the Magician if I didn’t have a knack for getting myself in and out of dangerous situations.”

“Don’t play coy with me,” Zoey replied, unimpressed, “they call you that because of that stupid coin trick, remember, not because you’re some master illusionist. Ooooh.” She fluttered her fingers around to sarcastically mime mysticism.

“Or am I?” Will asked, defiantly coy. He placed his hands Zoey’s shoulders, slotting the tips of his thumbs just under her ears so he could tip her head back to kiss her again, slower and deeper.

She grasped his wrists, pushing herself up to chase his tongue, humming in pleasure. Zoey wanted to press herself into him, but knew he wouldn’t like it, not after all the time he’d spent getting ready. They couldn’t have his contacts seeing even the hint of a wrinkle on his otherwise immaculate suit.

As if reading her mind, Will broke the kiss, opening his eyes to peer down at her. “If you’re staying here tonight, don’t wait up, I’ll most likely be gone all night.”

“I’ll wait up if I choose to. When you get back, I might want to anger-bang you into next week for leaving me all alone in this big bed of yours,” Her voice took on a suggestive tone, “ _worrying_ myself thinking about you, over and over…”

Will’s eyes lit up with a wicked gleam and he dropped one last peck on her lips before pulling away entirely. “If that’s the case, I’ll try to arrange to end things sooner, in case you find yourself in need of a _hand_.”

Zoey quietly followed Will out of the bedroom and down the stairs, watching him mentally clock himself in as he grabbed his phone, car keys, and wallet from the little end table in the foyer. With fluid motions, he pocketed the wallet and phone, and palmed the keys. He walked out the front door without so much as a wave, mind dutifully set on the task ahead of him.

It was the last time she saw him, until the coroner had pulled back a sheet to reveal his mangled body.

* * *

The night before the memorial service for Will, Zoey’s phone dinged.

She had spent the week moping around the Casa, drowning her sorrows in drugs and alcohol, feeling sorry for herself, a hurt so deep down inside she couldn’t even comprehend how it could be real. There was a moment, right after waking up from sleep, where her memory hadn’t come back to her yet, making her believe Will was right there beside her. Then it would all come crashing back down around her, but somehow, that brief moment between sleeping and wakefulness was more real to Zoey than reality. Or maybe she wanted it to be…

The Suits weren’t faring much better, each of them coping in their own special way. Three separate bars and a brothel had banned Andre, Budd had disappeared for two days, scaring the everliving shit out of them, but had refused to tell them where he’d gone when they finally got ahold of him, and Echo… she’d confessed to Zoey that she’d slipped from her stringent diet and workout regiment to carbo-load in the face of her grief, needing _something_ to fill the hole that had been left inside of her.

Zoey hadn’t even had the heart to crack an inappropriate joke.

After their own bouts with coming to terms with Will’s passing, the Suits had tried keeping her engaged by returning to their semi-normal routine, so she wouldn’t isolate herself from them, but after the coroner’s office had delivered Will’s belongings, Zoey had taken one look at the diamond encrusted tie-clip and had gone into full shutdown mode. They pretty much left her alone after that, only peeking in on her to let her know they were managing her various enterprises and what arrangements had been made for the service.

She felt guilty for her behavior, for not even making the effort to reach out and help console them over their mutual loss, but the effort to even acknowledge their brief updates drained what little energy she had. When they’d come to her for approval on a massive bounty for Will’s killer, Zoey had merely waved a hand in a vague thumbs up before taking another hit off her vape.

Her mom had then come over to try consoling her. Zoey spent several hours alternating between lying her head numbly in Melinda’s lap as she stroked her daughter’s hair, going on about how things would eventually get better with time, and arguing with her when she told Zoey it meant she could start a new chapter in her life, potentially with someone new, after she’d gone through all the stages of grief.

Melinda had eventually warmed up to Will enough to be on speaking terms with him, after she’d had a lot of long talks with Zoey, but in listening to her prattle on about how she’d come to see Will’s passing as a good thing, it became abundantly clear her mom wasn’t too torn up about Zoey’s loss.

It just cut the chasm in her heart deeper, leaving Zoey feeling hollower than before her mom had shown up. That night, she’d invited Echo over and the two of them had sat out in the gazebo staring up at the stars, seeking comfort in each other’s presence. That short time together had been more a balm for Zoey than the entire day she’d spent with her mom.

At current, Zoey was flopped down face first on her bed, Stench Machine purring away on her butt, debating whether to just stay put and cry herself to sleep, or meander down to the pool to float around crying. She would either suffocate in her pillows or drown, and either option sounded like a better than living with the ragged wound in her chest.

Her phone dinged again, a message from Carlton that there was a visitor at the gate, but Zoey didn’t feel like answering. Whoever was out there could wait until the sun went supernova for all Zoey cared, she had more important matters to attend to, like deciding on a location for her busy crying schedule.

Carlton knocked on her door a few minutes later before poking his head in. “Ms. Ashe, there is a gentleman outside asking to meet with you. He’s being quite persistent. He’s asked me to inform you that he wants to discuss something about Mr. Blackwater.”

 _That_ piqued her interest. Zoey lifted her head up off the pillow to look at Carlton. The bounty was for fifty million dollars, but so far, no one had come forward with any information. Or, at least, information that wasn’t insane babbling or bizarre conspiracy theories. Maybe this insistent little turd knew something.

Or it was just a ruse to get their fifteen minutes of fame, _today I saw a depressed cow, who wants to hear all about it_?

Figuring it was more likely the former, Zoey sighed.

“Thank you, Carlton. Give security permission to let the person through. And could you set out some drinks in one of the smaller dining rooms?” Zoey thought about calling Wu back to the Casa but figured Kowalski’s team would be enough to stop one man if it turned out he was there for blood, though she doubted it would come to that.

“It would be my pleasure, Ms. Ashe. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”

Heaving herself off the bed, Stench Machine hissing angrily at being evicted from his perch, Zoey got to her feet and stopped to glance at herself in the mirror. She looked dreadful.

Her face was ghastly pale, offsetting her sunken eyes ringed with dark circles. Her hair was stringy and unkempt, and when Zoey half-turned, she could see a spot in the back all knotted together from so much time spent lying around. It was as though she’d died, and some inconsiderate asshole had thrown her corpse in a microwave to heat her back up.

Zoey was in some of the dumpiest clothes she still owned, something Tre would have smacked her upside the head for not burning now that she was so long removed from the trailer park. An oversized t-shirt littered with tiny holes and bleach stains that had turned the black dye brown and white where it had spotted. With it were a pair of jeans ripped not for fashion but from years of disrepair, now a size too big after years spent in Tabula Ra$a, but were incredibly comfortable, the denim faded, especially around the ass after being worn away from years of chili farts.

Her mourning shroud.

Zoey stared numbly at her reflection, seeing herself from over four years ago. Living day to day in fear of losing her job, her car breaking down, her mother finally dying at the hands of a scumbag boyfriend, of dying alone, Stench Machine munching on her bloated corpse. Her eyes blurred with tears at the reminder just how far she had come in life, with the help of Will and the Suits, and in spite the best attempts of those who wanted her dead.

 _Oh, yeah, heap on the depression, make yourself the perfect party host. If it turns out he_ is _here to kill you, at least he might feel guilty about it_.

Zoey stuck a hand in her pants pocket, palming the tie-clip Will had been wearing the night he died, trying to leech some sort of strength from it. She’d kept it close by since receiving it from the coroner’s office, as a memento. There were several other trinkets of Will’s she wanted to grab from his house before it was packed up, but she hadn’t had it in her to return after that first night. The Suits had held off doing anything with it until she was mentally prepared to handle overseeing it, mumbling something about how being around a girl crying her eyes out made big, burly working men types supremely uncomfortable.

Their loss, it would have been one _hell_ of a show, her sobbing over a box of Will’s coffee mugs and underwear.

Clutching the clip, she inhaled deeply, centering herself, cutting off her depressing thoughts before it became a legitimate pity party. Exhaling purposefully, Zoey marched out of her room and down the stairs.

Carlton was waiting outside the dining room that was more a nook than anything else, with just a small table and two chairs. Arthur had liked it for an intimate setting for the girls he entertained. Zoey liked it because it had been a private room for her and Will to share meals. And other things.

If this guy had information, she wanted to see the truth in his eyes, not squint at him from across a table nearly the length of a football field. If he wanted some gotcha footage for Blink, at least the world would see how completely heartbroken she was in vivid high-def.

 _Guilt_!

On the table that had recently been replaced were two cups, a pot of coffee, sugar, and fresh cream, all placed on a tray at the center. Zoey sat down in the chair Will normally assumed, poured herself a cup and told Carlton to let their guest in.

The man who walked in was not at all what she had expected, mostly because she hadn’t expected the guy to be there to kill her, which he most _definitely_ looked like he was capable of doing.

He was tall and well-built, with a square jaw covered in stubble and cunning brown eyes that were dead enough inside to remind her of a shark. The deep blue suit he wore was expensive but old, and clearly not tailored to his frame. The belt and the shoes were the same color but not an exact match, meaning they’d been purchased separately, most likely a few years apart, going by the treadwear.

Zoey’s knowledge on suits was apparently sexually transmitted.

He wore no tie, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, revealing a faux silver chain nestled in a crop of dark chest hair. To the untrained eye, he could have passed as a suburban kid playing gangster, selling drugs to his friends and organizing small-time heists to impress the neighborhood bimbos. To Zoey, his eyes said he _was_ a gangster, who had done a lot more than peddle coke, but hadn’t done quite enough to go pro.

A boy in a man’s hand-me-down clothes, but a dangerous boy, nonetheless.

“And just what the hell do you want?” She asked, making it clear that not only did he not frighten her, but that he was interrupting her ride on the depression spiral.

“Good evening, Ms. Ashe.” He said, unbothered by her tone. He had a surprising hint of a European accent. “My name is Vasyl Kravchenko and I am pleased to be making your acquaintance.”

“Uh-huh… I have no idea who you are, if you’re supposed to be anyone at all, but you said you were here for something about Will, so you might as well have a seat and spit it out. And don’t mind the meager spread, I wasn’t expecting company.”

“I am grateful for even that,” He sat down and unbuttoned his suit jacket, “a woman in mourning leaving her bower to entertain guests is gift enough. Coffee is just icing on the cake.” Vasyl poured himself a cup, heaping in three teaspoons of sugar before stirring it slowly. He regarded her with those shark eyes over the rim of the cup as he took a sip.

Zoey felt her skin crawl. She began second-guessing her decision to be sociable.

“Normally I would break the ice with small talk or idle chit-chat, but I can tell you’re not exactly in a chatting mood.” Vasyl smiled at her. “If I may be so bold?”

Zoey shrugged, sipping her coffee with a blasé attitude.

“It has been a week since the… _unfortunate_ passing of Will Blackwater. You and your associates are doing your best to keep the wheels in motion, to keep the trains in Tabula Rasa running, but there are those now running amok without a firm hand to constrain them. Without the fear Mr. Blackwater struck into their hearts at the idea of crossing him.”

She wanted to shatter her cup on his stupid square jaw. He wasn’t there to talk about the bounty, he wanted a goddamn _job_. Will’s job. Zoey sneered derisively. “And lemme guess, Mr. Wannabe Bigshot, I suppose you’re about to suggest that _you_ are in possession of that firm hand.”

“I _know_ I am.” He leaned forward in his seat, cup dangling from his fingertips. “In the last week, there have been three murders of men moving weapons to the city, an incident in one of your brothels that left a woman maimed, and a man with black market Raiden tech held up a bank. Thankfully, you were there to put him down, but the rest? It is bad business for people not to have their weapons, or for girls to fear going to work.

“No disrespect meant, but Mr. Blackwater was, how you say, old-school. Old fashioned. A man who would not allow himself to be replaced but wouldn’t open himself up to suggestion either, even when it was clear his methods were outdated. I am a man of the future, Ms. Ashe, and I can be the change Tabula Rasa needs, that _you_ need.”

His smile took on a suggestive note and it took every ounce of self-control Zoey possessed to not punch his teeth down his throat. “That I need?” She repeated sarcastically. “Will’s only been dead a week, but you’re sitting gonna sit there and tell me what I need is _you_ … not him?”

“Yes, Ms. Ashe, _yes_. You and I are of an age, thrust into the world of old men stuck playing old men games, cursing the young for their youth but profiting off our labors. Using us for our…” Vasyl flashed Zoey a knowing look, “well, _using_ us. But no longer. You are free now, free to shape your company and Tabula Rasa in your own image. You’ve already started the process, and I want to help you finish it.”

Zoey polished off the dregs of her coffee and poured another cup, her hands shaking. “I don’t know _anything_ about you, other than that your cologne is cheap and you’ve undressed me with your eyes twice, though whether it’s out of genuine lust or the insinuation that you’re open to the idea to ingratiate yourself to me, I haven’t figured out. But that old man you’re insulting was…” She felt a white-hot flash of pain, Will’s face dancing in her vision. She shook her head, unable to speak.

Vasyl reached across the table, covering one of her hands with his in effort to calm her. “As I said, no disrespect. However you felt, I’m sure it was real to you, but facts are facts. The time has come to start afresh, before the vultures swoop in to take what you have left, to leave the past behind you and move toward a new world order.”

Zoey slid her hand away. “You could very well be one of those vultures.”

Vasyl leaned back in his chair, casually hooking a leg over his knee, unbothered by the fact that he was being dismissed. “I know that it’s hard to look beyond into the future, given your current emotional state, but it’s all quite simple, honestly. You need order restored, I can restore it for you. My credentials may not be what you'd consider... _above board_ per se, but that's exactly what you need. The organization I work for is looking to expand its operations. If you were open to my proposal, I would assume the position of your right-hand man on the board to oversee integration, of course after you memorialize your dear Will. Naturally, there would be some internal distress, a few outcries over the wheels of progress moving, but I am not unfamiliar with taking out the competition.” He grinned rakishly at that, as if laughing at an inside joke.

She felt the creeping horrors once more, coldly traveling up her spine and making her shiver. Suspicion flooded through her, and she immediately thought of what Will would do, to sneakily set a snare for his prey to walk into.

Perhaps all those chess games had served a purpose after all, besides just getting into Will's pants.

“Well, someone who isn’t afraid to get their hands dirty is something we definitely need right now.” Zoey conceded with feigned chagrin, like she was ashamed to admit he had a point. "Hell, I think my father _exclusively_ hired people who had shit-covered hands. Probably made him feel better about his own…"

An odd expression colored Vasyl's features at that. “Yes, he did at that… but given the chance, the city would see that like him, I am not one to be trifled with, nor my associates. It would be a lucrative endeavor, for all involved, and once you allow the money to start flowing in… _new_ directions, once more opportunities open up, the flock will fall into line, eager to earn a decent living.”

“Your associates?” Zoey asked, thinking what Vasyl was offering sounded like the same old song and dance of the current regime, only with a new sheen and more oppression. Will was definitely as old-fashioned as Vasyl was accusing him of being, with his antique guns and ridiculously outdated fedoras, but he embraced ingenuity and all the progress it brought with it. Progress plus enterprise equaled money and power in his book. He was all about facilitating connections between new enterprises, businesses, and consumers, allowing the economy of the city to operate at full efficiency without much oversight or regulation, the free markets dictating everything. It wasn't always ethical but when had anyone in Tabula Ra$a been concerned with ethics when ignoring them made their bank accounts swell with zeroes.

What Vasyl was offering was merely a new take on the efforts of Molech, who'd believed only he could lead Tabula Ra$a into a better future. Molech wanted to rule with an iron fist, the wolves ruling over the sheep, the means of progress only in the hands of those he deemed superior. Vasyl might as well have been reading from Molech's roided-out revenge manifesto, just with a more business friendly approach, but Zoey’d had front-row seats to the kind of future he’d envisioned, and she’d made damn certain it would never come to fruition. Like hell after all that pain and effort was she about to let Vasyl create a monopoly in the city under the protection of her name.

“Sounds ominous. It also sounds like you’re threatening me, that if I don’t give you this job, your associates will have no problem taking what I have by force. What makes you think I’ll let you force me into anything?” Will’s words coming out of her mouth, moving her across the playing field in his absence.

 _Never be the mouse, always be the cat_.

“You’re thinking like Will Blackwater, not letting yourself be open to new ideas, seeing everything as a threat. Let go of the old ways and think ahead to the future we could create together.” Vasyl tapped a finger to his temple. “Think of my offer as less of an attempt at a coup and more a marriage of ideals. Or shall I say, to not overstep myself, a _fruitful_ partnership. Goodness knows there is some _barren_ landscape that could use some tending.” His eyes undressed her for the third time.

 _Oh, you little shit, I’ll show you barren when I put you in an unmarked grave_.

“A partnership? How do you mean exactly?”

“Yes, a partnership, with the two of us-”

The door to the dining room opened and Wu stuck his head in, gaze immediately going to Vasyl. When it was apparent nothing untoward was going on, he smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. Security messaged me. It’s late and I wanted to make sure you were all right.” He was wearing jogging pants and a sweater, and it was apparent he had rushed right over when he got the message to check in on her.

“It’s okay, Wu, I’m fine.” Zoey said with forced evenness, upset with his timing but beyond grateful for the interruption. If she’d had to spend one more minute with Vasyl, trap or no trap, there would have been a definite possibility that she would have broken her coffee mug and used the jagged shard to gut him like a fish. “We’re just having a drink and a chat.”

Vasyl stood up and nodded his head to Zoey. “He’s right though, Ms. Ashe, it is late, and I’ve intruded enough. Perhaps we should continue this conversation later? I can call your people, to arrange a meeting at your convenience.”

“Yeah, sure, sounds great.” She feigned a smile. “Please do that.”

With a smile, he buttoned his suit jacket, bidding her goodnight as he moved past Wu to exit the dining room.

Zoey heard Carlton show Vasyl out.

Once the front door closed, Wu rounded on Zoey. “What the hell was that?” He asked, so beyond livid he was nearly apoplectic. “Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed?! You know who that was, right?”

Zoey looked Wu square in the eye. “Yeah… that’s the guy who killed Will.”

* * *

“You’re not thinking ahead.” Will said, moving his bishop to take Zoey’s knight, leaving her exposed.

More exposed than she already was, given that she was sitting in her bra and underwear. Will had been trying to teach her chess, explaining that it would help give her the fundamentals of a tactical mind, a practical lesson in the art of war and misdirection. It was important to him that she learned how to handle herself, to operate independently if need be, with all the cunning and resourcefulness of having the whole team behind her.

It was beyond boring, however, too many rules and strategies, so Zoey had decided to spice things up, by making it a game of strip chess.

Will was still fully clothed. Bastard.

Thank goodness the door to the nook was closed, otherwise Carlton or Wu would come across a very bizarre scene.

“I get it, stop reacting and start acting.” Zoey sniped, moving a pawn to block his bishop “I still think this is totally unfair. I’m a complete noob and you’re a damn chess master apparently, so did I ever really stand a chance?”

Will shrugged a shoulder. “I admit it’d be better to have an instructor on the intermediary level, someone who could pose a challenge without the outcome being a forgone conclusion, but we work with what we’ve got.” He moved a rook down to take the pawn. “Checkmate.”

Zoey looked at the board. She had almost no pieces left, and the rook was now a direct threat to her king, but the bishop was blocking any movement out of check. She shifted her arms back to take off her bra. “No, it’s not just that… you don’t want me playing strip chess with some _other_ gawky nerd trying to show me the ropes.”

She set the bra on the table, grinning as Will spent a moment staring at her breasts. It’s not like he hadn’t seen them before, but like any typical heterosexual man, any boobs were good boobs. Especially boobs he had express permission to press his face into, which he did. She could tell that’s exactly what he wanted to do but was restraining himself. One more match and he’d be completely victorious. The only thing he enjoyed about as much as he enjoyed her boobs was winning, and it was apparent he _really_ wanted to win.

Zoey made a big show of sighing before leaning forward to reset the board, chest bouncing with each movement.

He was still staring. “Yes, that is also something to take into account.” Will said thickly.

“Maybe you should try going easy on me.” Zoey said, slowly slotting the chess pieces into place. “Stop going for the kill right away and tease me a little.”

If she won this next match, it would only be because all the blood in Will’s head had instantly rushed to his pants.

“I think I can oblige, yes.”

Zoey pushed the board back between them and Will made the first move, pushing forward a pawn. She watched his eyes flick between the pawn and her chest. “So, instead of moving in for a surgical strike, I will advance my troops forward into a drawn-out bloody engagement.”

There was some back and forth, pieces disappearing from the board in quick succession until both their pawns had been whittled down drastically.

“Now, this is the point where the king will send in his generals, for more advanced combat maneuvers. This is where strategy comes in. If I send my pieces too far forward, I risk losing them. I want to draw _your_ pieces out, so when they are taken, it leaves me with the advantage.” He moved a knight forward, dangling it like bait.

“But… if you do that, you lose your knight.” Zoey hesitated, tempted to take the bait just to get the knight off the board, but decided to move her kingside bishop, in order to clear the space between the king and the rook to castle on her next turn.

“ _Now_ you’re thinking ahead.” Will said warmly but responded by moving his queen up three spaces threateningly. “But sometimes, pieces have to be sacrificed in order to achieve victory. Winning always comes at a cost. You just have to be willing to accept the price.”

Zoey arched a brow. “But you’re always going on and on about minimizing the cost, taking the road of least resistance and blah blah blah.”

“If I can, yes. It’s why you’ve been losing this whole time, because you throw your pieces at mine, whereas I only sacrifice when I need to, making them worth more, in the end.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Zoey said, stretching her arms over her head as she yawned, showcasing just how bored she was. And _other_ things.

Will’s eyes went to her boobs again. “That’s cheating.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to gain the advantage. All’s fair in love and war, right?” She said, ignoring that she’d _just_ been complaining about how unfair it was that she, a novice, was going up against him, a pro.

He cleared his throat, shifting in his chair, the obvious erection making it uncomfortable to sit, but with a superhuman amount of self-control he pointedly peered down at the board. “It’s your move.”

Zoey bit her lip suggestively and leaned an elbow on the table so she could rest her chin in her hand. With the other, she castled her king with slow, deliberate motions.

Will took a moment to consider his options (and her boobs) and Zoey didn’t know whether it was because she’d actually made some surprising gains this match or because he was trying to figure out a way to keep the game going without slaughtering her mercilessly, as he had before.

Either way, he advanced his knight, taking her last pawn. It was a weak move and she figured he was genuinely taking it easy on her so he could teach her. Her queenside rook took the knight, now giving both rooks and her queen noticeable avenues to the other side of the board.

Will responded by taking her queen with his. If she took his queen with one rook, it would leave the piece vulnerable. Zoey considered the board and then moved her bishop diagonally to a few spaces in front of his king.

“Checkmate.”

He’d been so distracted by the trifecta of her rooks and queen that the bishop had gone unnoticed, until it was too late. It effectively blocked him in, and his only move would have put his king in line with her rook. Her hands immediately shot into the air in celebration, surprised by finally beating Will. “Hah, sucker! You lost!”

Nodding his head, Will stood up and began undoing his tie. “Did I?”

Zoey blinked at him, then looked down at the board. He could have easily blocked her bishop with his pawns but hadn’t. He’d let her believe she was clever by sneaking up on him, when in reality, he’d left himself open to her attack, for the express purpose of losing the game.

It had all been an incredibly devious ploy on his part.

“See what happens when you think ahead?”

Will didn’t stop undressing at the tie. He didn’t stop until he was damn sure the table could never be eaten off of again.

* * *

Budd stood next to Zoey as she greeted mourners at the door, surreptitiously whispering their names as they passed.

“That’s the head of the department of water and power, a weaselly little schmuck if I ever saw one, and believe you me, he and Arthur butted heads a _lot_. Best to just pretend he don’t exist. Oh, and here comes the madam of the first brothel your dad opened up. Didn’t age well, but goddamn can she…”

Zoey half-heartedly listened to him drone on and on, making introductions, relating tidbits of information on who she should or should not avoid, cracking wise on an otherwise somber occasion. It was his way of dealing with it all, relating the stories of all the people who had come to pay respects to Will, or had just come to see the spectacle.

Will hadn’t wanted a big affair, just a simple memorial after being cremated, but anyone who was anyone was making an appearance, turning it into one of the biggest events of the day. Many weren’t too pleased she’d banned Blink cameras, though, as if she’d somehow greatly inconvenienced them with her request for privacy.

Despite the ban, however, they’d all still shown up, to either be seen for posterity’s sake or to ingratiate themselves to Zoey by offering their meager condolences. Captains of industry, the idle billionaires, local celebrities, ditzy socialites, criminal overlords, hedge fund managers, the entire ladder of Tabula Ra$a. Every last one of them was acutely aware of the gaping power vacuum, now that her right-hand man and one of the founding chairmen of the former Livingston Enterprises was gone, a vacuum many were vying to fill.

It had only been a week since he’d been murdered, but the pockets of her cardigan bulged with the business cards of every scoundrel, power player and two-bit hustler with a bit of reputation eager to make a name for themselves. She only kept them because there wasn’t a garbage can nearby for her to throw them into after they were slipped into her hand.

The only ones so far who had come to genuinely mourn were Megaboss Alonzo and DeeDee, her mom and Titus and Marti Chobb. Melinda, despite her differences with Will, had insisted on coming as moral support for Zoey. Or so she’d claimed. Zoey could see her mom glad-handing with the bigwigs, Titus on her arm like a piece of man-candy, apparently thinking a memorial service was the perfect place to network for a new group of friends.

Her and everyone else.

She spotted Vasyl in the crowd, talking with two young, pretty socialites, wearing another suit that just didn’t quite fit him right. When he’d greeted her at the door, she could smell that he’d swapped out his cologne for something less cheap and overpowering. Under any other circumstances, she would have thought such a gesture as sweet, but the mere sight of him made her want to throw up, let alone having to play nice.

Wu was discreetly keeping tabs on him, watching with eagle eyes for any wrong move. He’d been absolutely adamant Zoey inform the Suits of her suspicions on Vasyl, but Zoey had refused. If it was a game of cat and mouse he wanted, Zoey didn’t want Budd, Andre, or Echo to be aware of what was going on, lest one of them tip their hands while she tried luring Vasyl in. They were too well-known, and if one of them was caught sniffing around Vasyl’s operation, it would give up the game before it had even started. She needed to know every last person who was in on his little plot, so she could skin them all alive and tan their bloody hides on the roof of the Casa.

Vasyl caught her looking, and the smile he flashed her was somehow both consoling and incredibly inappropriate for their surroundings. Who the hell flirted at a memorial service? Apparently wannabe overlords, going by the way Vasyl layered it on. Faking a smile in return burned her to the core and Zoey felt the air get sucked out her lungs, the cloying press of people and voices around her suddenly too much.

She surreptitiously tugged on Budd’s sleeve to get his attention, cutting him off midsentence from describing some long-ago bizarre costume party she’d only been half paying attention to. “I need some space.” Zoey said with a tremulous voice, feeling as though she were going to start hyperventilating if she didn't get away from all these slavering animals.

Something on her face must have concerned him, because he nodded his head and put an arm around her protectively. Budd motioned for Wu with a jerk of his neck, and it only took a few moments to feel him move in beside her.

“Are you okay?” He asked, eyes searching her worriedly.

Budd answered for her. “Just needs some peace and quiet is all, away from the hubbub.” He stopped to glance around over the heads of everyone in the funeral home. “The director’s office should be empty, and if not, well, make it empty.”

Zoey let herself be led through the crowd, Wu’s hand on her back gently guiding her, and when they passed by a trashcan, she quickly dumped all the business cards into it, not caring who she offended if they saw her.

It only took a moment to reach the funeral director’s office door, Wu calmly thwarting any attempts by the guests to stop her for conversation, but to Zoey, it felt like she’d waded across an ocean, the riptide trying to drag her under.

Wu opened the door and glanced around the office. Cluttered but empty. The two doors on the opposite side of the desk led to a private bathroom and down to the mortuary where bodies were prepared before being shown. He gave it the all-clear and looked at Zoey.

“Take as much time as you need. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them you’re going over your eulogy. Call me when you’ve cleared your head, okay?”

Once more, he left Zoey alone. After the door shut, she felt herself start to panic. She’d completely forgotten she was supposed to give a eulogy. Zoey had written one, after Echo had informed her everyone was expecting her to say something, but her eulogy was sitting at the Casa somewhere. It had been a rough day from the moment she’d woken up, like someone had placed a boulder on her chest while she’d been sleeping, and she’d gone the whole day feeling it gradually crush her.

Zoey perched on the edge of the desk and leaned her head back, feeling the beginning of a panic attack come on.

A hand clamped painfully over her mouth, lips pressing against her ear.

“Whatever you do, _don’t_ scream.”

Zoey froze. _No_ …

The hand released her, and she twisted around to find Will standing behind the desk. Very much alive and well.

“ _Will_ …” She breathed, unable to believe what she was seeing. The world tilted sharply, making her feel dizzy. “Oh, my god, you’re-” She blinked at him, reality no longer making sense in her eyes. “What the hell are you _wearing_?!” She hissed.

Instead of his normal suit and tie, Will was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans that hugged his body like a glove, a plain grey t-shirt under a beat-up black leather jacket with a black hood and a pair of old black combat boots, the faux leather peeling back in a few places. His black hair, normally slicked back, was left untamed in a casual street-tough style, finger combed to one side, the stray fringes hanging in his eyes. A crop of dark stubble lined his jaw.

He glanced down at himself. “It’s called a _disguise_.” Will said in his especially annoyed voice. “I had to-”

He was cut off by Zoey rounding the desk to pounce on him, wrapping her arms around him in a possessive hug. Will immediately hugged her back. The stone that had been crushing her vanished instantaneously. The scent of scotch and cologne she’d come to associate with him was gone, replaced by worn leather and stale tobacco. He still smelled amazing.

“You were _dead_ ,” She babbled into his chest, “I waited up for you, but you never came home… I was worried sick the whole day, then they called to say they found your body… I saw your _body_!”

“It was a-”

“It was _you_ , or I thought it was you… Am I dreaming right now? How is this possible?”

He arched a brow. “If you’d let me get a word in edgewise, I’ll tell you-” 

Will was cut off again, this time by Zoey yanking him down to latch herself to his mouth, frantically kissing him, not caring one iota about stubble burn. She clawed her fingers desperately into the back of his jacket, clinging to him as though he would vanish if she let go.

He hesitated momentarily, as though he were going to push her away, but then growled deep in his chest, bodily hoisting Zoey up onto the desk. Will reached under her skirt, tearing at her underwear hard enough to leave scratches on her skin. She lifted her butt to help him get them off and released her death grip to move her hands between them, fingers going to the zipper of his ridiculous jeans.

Will leaned his forehead against Zoey’s to watch her work, panting heavily with anticipation, barely able to contain himself. He murmured her name as she greedily took him in her hand.

It only took several seconds of frenzied fumbling to guide him inside of her. Zoey groaned in relief at the feel of him filling her up, like stepping out under the warm sky after being convinced she’d never see the sun again. Once he was in up to the hilt, he drove her down onto her back, pressing his full weight on top of her, gripping the edge of the desk to gain enough leverage to begin pounding into her.

It was hard, messy, and Zoey never felt more alive. She wrapped her legs around his waist, tilting her hips up and digging her heels into his back. This was no time for games, for techniques, or for inexorably drawing out the moment, it was only about relishing the fact Will was alive with a sloppy, uncoordinated interlude.

Zoey’s mouth found his once more, her hands winding into to his hair, soft from the lack of product, and she dragged her nails across his scalp. Will hissed and tilted his head back when she brushed up against a bandage on his head, hidden by the sweep of his incognito hairstyle.

“Sorry!” She gasped.

Will responded by lifting his hands up to grasp Zoey’s wrists, pulling them away from his head and pinning them down onto the desk. His fingers were like a vice, the pressure hurting her, and Zoey moaned quietly, a shiver rolling up her spine. That seemed to spur him on, and she watched as his gaze uncoupled, pure, unadulterated instinct taking over.

The office filled with the sound of their heaving breaths and the snap of flesh on flesh as Will drilled himself into Zoey, the legs of the desk squeaking against the floor under the force of their movements. She stared up at him, watching his face turn pink from exertion, sweat beading on his upper lip, blue eyes burning hot with passion. Zoey had spent the last week believing she would never see him again, never touch him again, and now here he was, alive and well, threatening to split her in two with every punishing thrust of his _very_ alive hips.

Zoey’s legs began shaking around Will, her breath quickening. He was absolutely unforgiving in his ministrations, and she began building closer, every nerve focused solely on where their bodies met. Her toes curled inside her heels, jaw dropping open in a pleasured gasp.

He quickly released one of her wrists to clamp a hand over her mouth once more.

“I said _don’t_ scream.”

Easier said than done, the way he was going at it.

Zoey squeezed her eyes shut, doing her best to choke back a scream as orgasm crashed over her, deep-frying her brain into smoldering ash. Gooseflesh erupted on her skin as she arched her back, amplifying the intense sensations. When she tightened around him, Will muttered a string of curses under his breath, driving into her harder and faster.

It had only been a week since she last had him like this- no, two weeks. They hadn’t had sex in the seven days leading up to his supposed murder because of her pregnancy scare (that Will hadn’t known about until afterward), and somehow in that short amount of time, her misery had caused her to forgot just how potent her orgasms were with Will, how he could spark something deep inside of her and create a flashpoint of ecstasy.

 _Because I thought I’d never experience it again.._.

She moaned Will’s name into the palm of his hand as the waves ebbed, leaving behind a hot, throbbing ache between her legs. She sank back onto the desk, boneless, eyes fluttering open to watch Will move above her.

He hunched himself over, grunting in her ear. He followed shortly after, with short, sharp thrusts as he emptied himself inside her. He slowly uncurled his hand from Zoey’s mouth. Will tipped his head to the side to kiss her deeply as their breathing evened out, tongue tangling with hers languorously. After several moments, however, he reluctantly pulled away from her, levering himself up right.

Zoey groaned as he slipped out of her and she sat up carefully, head woozy from the overwhelming and unexpected dopamine dump. She watched in silence as Will reached for a box of tissues on the desk, taking a few to clean himself up. When he was done, he tossed the tissues in a trashcan before he tucked himself back into his jeans, pulling them up and zipping his fly. Will grabbed another handful of tissues and leaned down to clean Zoey up.

“I thought you were dead…” She whispered as he worked, tears forming in her eyes.

Will met her gaze head on. “I know. I’m sorry, but it was the only way.”

“The only way to _what_? Attend your own damn memorial to hear what people really think about you? _I’ll_ tell you what I really think right now.”

Throwing away the tissues, Will handed Zoey her underwear. Glaring at him, Zoey grabbed them and climbed off the desk.

“I don’t have time to explain,” He said, watching her wiggle her butt as she shimmied the underwear back on, “or rather, I _did_ , until you threw yourself at me,” at her death glare, he held up a hand placatingly, “not that I’m complaining, but now I’ll have to give you the short version.” Will’s eyes flicked to the door.

Zoey smoothed down her skirt and straightened her cardigan. The office now stank of hot, quick sex and she hoped the funeral director wouldn’t charge her extra for cleaning. “The short version being now that you’re alive I’m going to kill you myself, for making me think you were _dead_.” The tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving behind streaks of mascara. “I _mourned_ you, Will. I wanted to die, rather than be without you, while you were…” She motioned angrily to his outfit, “slumming it in a shitty biker dive bar.”

Will firmly grabbed Zoey by her shoulders to peer down at her. “ _Listen_ to me. It wasn’t a random shooting, someone tried to take me out.” He pointed to the bandage on his head. “Fortunately, they failed. The short version is this: someone is going to approach you about taking my place.”

Zoey rolled her eyes and looked at Will like he was a particularly stunted child. “Yeah, well, hate to break it to you, genius, but they already did.”

Will just blinked at her, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Well, that was fast. Didn’t even wait until after the memorial.” He shook his head ruefully at the uncouth move. “Who was it?”

“Vasyl someone. Wu said he was the son of some old Ukrainian mob boss.”

Realization dawned on his face, and she could see the wheels turning in his head. “Of course… there had been some rumors a faction of the mob was trying to worm their way back into the city. I just didn’t think they’d make this kind of play before establishing a real power base.” At Zoey’s blank expression, Will elaborated.

“When the Ukrainians tried to move in on Arthur’s interests over a decade ago, we were convinced it was going to lead to a bloody confrontation with incalculable collateral damage. Your father wanted to avoid all that and convened a meeting with all the mob captains in the city. It didn’t take long for he and I to press down on all the right pressure points and while we managed to settle things peacefully between everyone, it didn’t go well for the Ukrainians. There were over a dozen purges of their ranks after we sent them packing with their tails between their legs.”

“So that’s what this is all about, _another_ shit-bag out for revenge? That’s it, I’m making the Chore Wheel O’ Death.”

Having absolutely no idea how to respond to that, Will brushed it aside. “The lowest common denominators in this city tend to operate out of the same old tired handbook. Doesn’t make them any less dangerous, but it does make them incredibly predictable. It’s how I knew they’d come to you with an offer. But at least now I know where to start.”

“Wait, you’re _leaving_?” Her anger dissipated and she grabbed Will by the lapels of his leather jacket possessively. “Please don’t go, don’t leave me again… you can come out with me and make your big overdramatic reveal and then pop a cap in Vasyl’s ass. Just stay, _please_.”

He covered her hands tenderly with his own, a sad smile on his face. “There’s nothing I want more, but I can’t. It’s much easier to move around with everyone thinking I’m dead. I’ve managed to avoid the Blink feeds for this long for a reason. I didn’t know who had tried to take me out, but I knew they did it for a reason beyond just taking me out of the picture, it’s why I faked my death. One man alone wouldn’t have risked making a move against me without help. Vasyl may be the head of the snake, but he has supporters and backers, so he might not have even been the one to actually shoot me.”

“No, it was _him_.” She shivered at the memory of his greasy smile and lewd overtures. “Trust me, that pervert did it. Said he wasn’t unfamiliar with taking out competition. And the way he said it… it wasn’t a euphemism for giving orders.”

Will regarded her with his sharp blue eyes, searching, trying to find out what she wasn’t telling him. When she didn’t elaborate, he continued past it. “You’re sure it was him?”

Zoey nodded resolutely.

“Okay. Okay, that helps.” He leaned down to kiss Zoey tenderly. “I have to go now.” He breathed into her lips. “But I _will_ be back.”

Zoey slowly released her hold on his jacket and moved to brush away her tears.

Will stopped her, taking her hand in his. “Don’t. I’m supposed to be dead and you’re supposed to be mourning. You’ve been in here longer for far longer than I intended, so the more tears, the better.” He seemed pained saying this, uncomfortable seeing the naked hurt on Zoey’s face, hurt he had caused.

He kissed her one last time, to try making her feel better. “Just promise me you won’t go out there and throat punch Vasyl. No sense in picking the weed if you don’t also dig up the roots, which is what I need to go do. So _promise_ me.”

There was a knock at the door. Wu called her name.

Zoey whipped her head around, panic rising in her throat once more. She hadn’t thought to lock it. When she looked back to Will, he was gone.

The door opened and Wu poked his head in.

“Hey, they’re about to start the service. You ready?”

Nodding, Zoey wobbled over to the door, still feeling gooey from climax. She watched as Wu lifted his nose in the air, picking up on the scent that had permeated the room and kicked herself into gear, jogging out of the office to get him out of there quickly.

The door closed behind them and she could only imagine what Wu thought she had been up to in there. Whatever it was, it would be nowhere close to what had _actually_ happened. She could still feel Will inside her, the scratches on her thighs he’d left behind in his desperate need. It was the only thing that carried her through the crowds, the imprint on her flesh and the knowledge that he hadn’t been cruelly taken from her.

He was _alive_ and the relief she felt was glorious.

She made her way up to the lectern on a little stage and gazed around at the gathered crowd, most sitting, the others taking what little standing room was left. In the front row was Andre, Budd, Echo, Carlton, her mom, Titus and Marti Chobb, and Wu, after he retook his seat.

Did the Suits know? Had they been let in on Will’s plan and been playing the part bereaved friend? Hell, even her mom had been in on the plan to circumvent Titus before he became too big for his britches, going to Will to offer her assistance in keeping her daughter safe. Did all of them know? Was she the only one who didn’t?

Shame instantly burned through Zoey, her cheeks going red as the tears started anew. A few people cleared their throats, uncomfortable with her emotional display.

No, they couldn’t. Wu wouldn’t have bared his soul to her if he’d known Will was alive. The looks on the Suits’ faces when they had seen Will’s body (or whoever’s) on the coroner’s table, the anger and the sadness, that had been genuine. They also wouldn’t have put up a fifty-million-dollar bounty for Will’s killer on the Skin Wall, risking that kind of money for a ploy. And her mom… Melinda had been sad for Zoey, but she could tell her mom was kind of relieved Will would be out of her life for good.

 _Hah, jokes on you_!

They were good at playing roles, but no one was _that_ good. The shame fizzled and Zoey let out a centering breath, ready to deliver her eulogy.

Her notes were still at the goddamn Casa. She’d have to wing it, going off what little memory she had of what she’d written down and enough emotion to sell the fact that Will was supposed to be dead.

 _Ah, to hell with it, I hope he can hear me_.

“One of the first things I heard about Will Blackwater was that he had the personality of a robot that had been programmed by an asshole, and a speech impediment that made every word coming out of his mouth sound like a threat. And what can I say, it was true. Will was indeed an asshole, and he could make a grocery list sound sinister. He was dangerous and cunning because he had to be, but what none of you ever knew, because you were too busy hating him or fearing him or hoping he’d die to give two shits about him, was that _everything_ he did, the good _and_ the bad, was to benefit this city you all call home.

“My father laid the foundations, but Will helped make it what it is now. He played your games, went along with the intrigue and power plays to keep you jackals from eating each other, but all he truly wanted was to leave his mark, something he would be remembered by. Now all I have of him is the mark he left in my memories and an urn, because some up-jumped shart gargler decided the city would be better off without him, without realizing how much better Will had made this place. Well, _my_ life isn’t better now that he’s gone. It’s even worse, because a good man, a _great_ man, was taken from me.”

Zoey waved a hand toward the urn that had been placed on a little table next to the lectern, full of someone’s ashes. “This is all I have left. When you leave here, you’ll go enjoy all the benefits of his hard work and lofty ideals, the casinos, the shops, the brothels and the drugs, the well-oiled machine of free market industry, churning away because of Will, while I’ll have nothing but his ashes to remind me what a bastard he was, and how much I loved him, because he was a _good_ man. I hope you’re all happy, because I’m sure as shit not.”

With that, Zoey flipped everyone off and walked off the stage.

There was nothing but silence in the room, until Andre burst out laughing so hard he farted, which only made him laugh harder. “Well, damn,” Zoey heard him boom, “don’t know how you’re gonna follow that, Echo!”

*~*~*

Wu drove Zoey home to the Casa and she made an immediate beeline to the Buffalo Room. She tapped away on one of the displays, bringing up the coroner’s report, all the files and x-rays done during Will’s autopsy.

She brought up one x-ray in particular, the one that showed the course of the bullet that taken, going in one side and out the other, little fragments left behind in the grey matter. Zoey narrowed her eyes, studying it, before understanding washed over her, making her chuckle. It had been there, right in front of them all, the whole time, and none of them had noticed it.

The metal plate in Will’s skull, courtesy of Black Scott, was conspicuously absent. Zoey thought back to the bandage that had been hidden under Will’s hair, in the exact same spot where his plate was. She reached into her cardigan pocket and pulled out the tie-clip. The expensive, diamond encrusted tie-clip that she loved, that Will had left behind, even though he was supposed to have been gunned down in a robbery.

For such an intelligent man, Will was _incredibly_ stupid.

Zoey collapsed into a fit of giggles, her heart soaring.

Wu meandered into the room, casually leaning against the doorjamb. He glanced from her to the display and back again. “So, Will’s alive, huh?”

The giggling subsided as Zoey felt herself freeze, like someone had dumped ice water in her veins. She craned her head up to stare at Wu, agog. Walking over to him, she glared up at Wu menacingly. “You _knew_ he was alive?” Perhaps he _had_ been that good.

“I mean, I didn’t until the- ow!” He reared back, out of Zoey’s reach after she punched his arm. He rubbed at the spot, surprised she’d been able to hurt him.

“You sonofabitch, you knew and didn’t tell me?!”

She tried to punch him again, but Wu deftly blocked the move. “If you’d let me speak!” He released her wrist. “I didn’t know until I came to get you from the funeral director’s office. After that, it wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on.”

“You saw him?”

“No, actually, I smelled him.” Wu said flatly. “I’m your shadow, remember? I’ve had to move in and out of rooms you and Will had sex in more times than I care to admit, so I know how it smells after you two have been at it. It was either that or you were banging the funeral director, but Andre seemed more his type than you.”

Zoey frowned. “That’s disgusting.”

“Hey, I’m not saying Andre would have gone for it, I’m just saying the guy was making pretty obvious overtures.”

“What? No, not _that_ , you… _smelling_ me and Will.”

“Stop banging him in weird places and I won’t have to.”

Zoey barked out a laugh and shook her head ruefully. “You won’t have to worry about that, after he stages his grand resurrection, I’m gonna stomp his dick and balls into jelly.”

“Oh, I’m certain you’ll find a better use for them than that.”

She shrugged, knowing he was probably right and glanced back at the x-ray with a devious smile. They’d had the same idea, her and Will, to lure out those responsible for attacking him, but Zoey knew Will would beat her to the punch. Now all she had to do was sit back and wait for the shit to hit the fan. It was too bad, she’d had plans in store for their skinned hides.

Maybe he would bring her back one as a souvenir.

* * *

Ten minutes after the skyline feed was hacked, the Suits had plowed into the Casa, hurriedly gathering in the Buffalo Room to join Zoey, who had already been watching the absolute pandemonium unfold. Hundreds of people were downtown, broadcasting their reactions to the hack, but Zoey was watching a drone feed of the skyline, not eager to listen to some mouth-breather’s grammatically incoherent rantings.

It had been three days since Will had appeared at the funeral home and Zoey had been on tenterhooks, anxiously waiting to see how he would take care of their mob problem. She watched the feed gleefully, fingernails digging into the leather arms of her chair.

It was of a pool hall in the lower business district on fire.

The fire department had shown up but with no owner demanding the fire be put out, they had just idled around as the fire blazed. It was only after the owners of the nearby buildings came flooding out to demand the fire be contained before it spread to their buildings did the firemen finally leap into action.

Someone had to pay their exorbitant rates, after all.

The crowds had gathered at the scene of the fire to watch the mayhem, the night sky illuminated orange as the flames licked higher and higher. It was the chyron at the bottom of the display that had caught their (and everyone else’s) attention and had sent the Suits flying into action.

 _Would-be Assassin of Will Blackwater Terminated_.

It scrawled over and over again, with no additional information apparently forthcoming.

“What the hell does that even _mean_?” Echo asked, furiously trying to hack the hackers who were broadcasting the live feed to the skyline. When that didn’t work, she tried finding the source of the feed, the specific camera uplink at the scene of the blaze, but had zero luck with that, too.

Zoey felt her lips curl up in a smirk, pride bursting in her chest. Will had successfully managed to take down the Ukrainian mob that had tried to kill him in attempt to overthrow her and the Suits with extreme prejudice. And had managed to stump Echo at the same time, a feat in and of itself.

“It means Will is coming home.” Zoey said plainly.

The room fell into stunned silence, all of them turning to stare at her with wide eyes.

“Come again?” Andre said. “It kinda sounds like you’re doing that ass talking thing you accuse _us_ of doing all the time.”

Wu piped up. “She’s not talking out her ass. Will’s alive.”

Budd dropped into his seat, legs no longer able to keep him upright at that little piece of information. “Of course he is, that clever little shit.” He breathed reverently. “Damn kid and his death ray…” He smiled to himself, joy and relief in equal measures painting his features.

Echo glanced between Wu and Zoey. “How… how is that even possible? We saw his body. We _all_ did.”

“You’d be surprised at the kinds of things you can buy in this city, for the right amount of money.” Will said, standing in the doorway to the Buffalo Room. Back in his overcoat, suit, and fedora, clean-shaven and hair slicked back in its normal style, it was like nothing had changed.

Six heads whipped around. Andre let out a celebratory whoop and ran to scoop Will up into his arms, lifting him off his feet in a bearhug. His fedora tumbled off his head from the force of it. Will chuckled loudly and clapped Andre on his back, glad to see him as well. Until he started wheezing from Andre squeezing him so hard.

Finding the strength to stand once more, Budd bolted out of his seat, and as soon as Andre released Will from his death grip, Budd moved in for the kill, even going so far as to kiss his cheek with a wet smack as he hugged him.

Old friends reunited.

Echo was much more subdued, embracing him calmly after the boys had manhandled him. Whatever she whispered in his ear however, the low, subtle tones of a death threat, made Will smile and roll his eyes. When she pulled back, she poked him in the ribs playfully.

“Okay, you _have_ to tell me how you did this.” Echo motioned to the feed of the hacked skyline. “Because I’m actually kind of impressed.”

“Just because you’re the tech wizard doesn’t mean I don’t know my way around a computer.” He replied smoothly as he bent down to pick up his fedora. He then moved around the table to his usual seat, setting his hat down and shucking out of his overcoat to hang it over the back of the chair. “I may be old but I’m not _that_ old.”

Andre pointed to the screen. “Still using the old methods, though. I’m assuming they won’t find enough remains to identify anyone.”

“If they do, I may have to rethink our association with the cartels.”

Budd laughed heartily. “And _still_ getting other people to do your dirty work!” He clapped his hands together joyfully. “By god, he’s back!” Budd moved over to the drink table, pouring two glasses of scotch. He took one for himself and slid the other glass across the table to Will. “Well, don’t go all tight-lipped on us now, you big-brained son of a bitch, we wanna know how the hell you pulled this off!”

They were all painfully familiar with Will’s quirks, how he enjoyed parading his intelligence around like a show dog. They were also aware that paradoxically, he would play if all off to make himself seem humble, how he was just a man simply doing his job.

It was the gift that kept on giving.

Zoey folded her arms across her chest, leaned back in her chair and looked to Will pointedly with a coy smirk. “Yeah, Will, tell them how you did it, before I wring your scrawny little neck for doing it.”

He side-eyed her thoughtfully before raising his scotch in a toast. “To death, resurrection, and death again.” Will took a deep drink, humming at the taste of quality spirits. He set the glass back on the table and regarded his captive audience. “Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“The short version.” They all said in unison.

Will shrugged but nonetheless smiled. “Short version it is. Failed assassination attempt, used a decoy corpse to fake my death, and disguised myself in effort to find out who’d tried to kill me before they subverted our entire organization.”

Silence.

“Uh…” Budd said, “if I’m gonna regale people with the tale of how you managed to Jesus Christ yourself and exact some biblical vengeance, maybe you should go into a _little_ more detail.”

They all nodded in agreement. More drinks were poured and passed around.

Will pressed his fingertips together and started again. “It was an auspicious night that our friend chose that night to make his play, when I was meeting our counterparts from the French Polynesian charter city in an isolated area away from prying eyes.”

Echo furrowed her brow. “But… you made it to that meeting. We questioned those guys after you… after you had quote unquote died, and according to them, nothing suspicious had happened. Everything went off without a hitch.”

“Yes, I made it to my destination unscathed. It was only _after_ our meeting that everything went to hell.” Will showed them the bandage on his head. “We have to look into a new generation of airsoft weaponry hitting the streets. They are incredibly high-powered, and the lack of gunpowder circumvented the propellant cooker I had in my car. Luckily, the metal plate fused to my skull deflected the bullet.” He gently knocked on his head to illustrate. “One shot in a million… still, it dropped me like a sack of potatoes, which is the only reason I was able to sell this little charade after I woke up.”

Budd interrupted him. “We checked Blink for any sign of what happened. Hell, we talked to anyone willing to snitch for a few benjamins. No one saw or heard anything. How did you manage to not get caught?”

“Shockingly enough,” Will answered, “people doing business in shady parts of the city tend to enjoy their privacy. Not that there were many people around, but there were enough jammers going, courtesy of myself and our counterparts, to turn that area into a black hole. And I assume our friend, Mr. Kravchenko, was using one as well, so no one would see him do the deed.”

“Oh, shit,” Andre boomed in surprise, “Kravchenko is still alive? I thought his fat ass got ganked after the purges?”

“No, Leonid is definitely dead. His son Vasyl, however, is very much alive. Or _was_ , until just recently.” Will pointed toward the feed of the fire. The fire department had almost gotten it contained, but the smoke was billowing into the night sky in thick, black columns. “I can only assume he got it in his head to get revenge on us, for getting his father killed, and started with me, since Arthur was already dead, and…”

He didn’t have to say it, but they all knew, Vasyl most likely started with Will because out of all the Suits, he was the most dangerous, and the most likely not to fall for any elaborate schemes, seeing as he was usually the one to devise them. “Well, I’m sure he believed once he’d acquired a position within the organization, he could methodically begin taking out the rest of you.”

Wu fixed Zoey with a piercing stare. “I _told_ you Vasyl was bad news. From now on, all your meetings with suspicious strangers go through _me_.”

Echo, Budd, and Andre turned to goggle at her.

“You _met_ with him?” Echo asked indignantly. “Were you _trying_ to get yourself killed?”

Zoey huffed out a laugh. “Funny, Wu asked me the exact same thing.”

Echo glared at Wu. “You _let_ her meet with him?”

“Hey hey hey,” Zoey interjected, holding up her hands defensively, “no one _lets_ me do anything around here! _I’m_ the boss of the applesauce! Besides, Wu didn’t even know about it until after, but trust me, if he had, I’d have made damn sure he _wouldn’t_ have let me. Dude was a first-class creepazoid, and that was _before_ I figured out he’d killed Will.”

“What was it he said to you exactly?” Will asked, again trying to determine what they’d discussed.

“Does it really matter? He's dead now.” What could Will honestly do if she told him Vasyl had insinuated he wanted to knock her up in effort to stake a bloodline claim to her empire, kill him twice? At Will’s insistent look, Zoey sighed. “He talked about how he and his associates were willing to step in to take your place, that they’d keep the peace if he was in control, and how he wanted to bring Tabula Rasa into the future, out of the clutches of the old men who run it.”

The old men in the room didn’t take too kindly to that.

Echo and Zoey shared a look over their protestations.

“Well, hell, Will,” Budd started, “if you hadn’t done the job, I’d have done it for you. What is it with these little brats crawling out of the woodwork thinking they know so much better than we do? Like frickin’ Molech all over again.”

Andre chuckled. “That’s the problem with having kids and raising them to replace you. They have to _replace_ you. Some of these jackholes just want that to happen sooner rather than later, and they _all_ think they have the solution to the world’s problems. Too bad those solutions are always the damn same. Death, destruction, and crueler, most sadistic forms of exploitation.”

“At any rate…” Will said over them. “I didn’t know any of this at the time, I just knew _someone_ had tried to take me out in an unsanctioned hit, which meant it wasn’t a major player.”

Zoey knew how anal he was about keeping tabs on the Skin Wall for any of their names, constantly making certain none of the mobs, cartels, street gangs, or any other crime organizations were making moves against them via well-paid informants. Couldn’t keep the machine running if it wasn’t well oiled. It was how they’d known about the Mormons, snitches coming forward with rumors and rumblings on the street.

“With what little information I _did_ have, and knowing my window was narrowing, I decided I had to make everyone _believe_ this person had been successful. If I hadn’t, they just would have tried again and possibly made a bigger show of it, a show I wouldn’t walk away from. The hardest part was finding a good double on the sly.”

“The organ farms.” Echo mused, side-eyeing Will. “Must have set you back a pretty penny.”

He tipped his head to one side casually. “Several _million_ pennies. But since I only needed the body, not the organs, I made certain when I altered both our medical records, I listed myself as an organ donor, so they would go to the local hospital, to people on the transplant list.”

Will looked to Zoey, as though he were seeking her approval. He knew how she felt about the organ harvesting farms, rich billionaires taking advantage of the huddled masses, buying their lives so they could destroy a new liver or enjoy a new heart so they could bang their underage mistresses while regular people languished on death’s door, unable to afford the organs they so desperately needed.

He wasn’t seeking her approval though, he just wanted her to know he had taken her feelings on the matter into consideration while enacting his master plan.

“It was purely kismet that I found a suitable match as quickly as I did. Buying the silence of the proprietor was easy enough, however, seeing as we own the company. Then all I had to do was… dress the body,” Will’s polite way of saying he’d blown the poor guy’s face off, “and, as I said, hack the system to alter our records so he would be identified as me. I then set the stage by my car to make it look like a robbery gone wrong and let everything unfold as it would have if Vasyl had been successful. The sacrifice play to make them think they’d won. Then all I had to do was wait to see who crawled out of the woodwork.”

Leaning forward in her chair, Zoey reached into her back pocket to pull out Will’s tie-clip and slid it across the table to him. “Good job of making it look like a robbery, chess master.” She said sarcastically, folding her arms across her chest. “So, if that was all you had to do to flush Vasyl out, then why did you come see me at the funeral home?”

“God _damn_ , you were there?” Andre asked in awe. “You didn’t hear me giggle fart, did you, ‘cause that was embarrassing as hell.”

Will actually laughed. “No, thankfully I didn’t get to stick around long enough to hear that.” He reached out to pick up the tie-clip, rolling it between his fingers, an odd expression on his face.

Zoey could see right through him. Will had meticulously crafted the horrendous scene of his would-be murder, but sentimentality had gotten the better of him. He’d made the whole thing look like a robbery but left behind the single most expensive item he’d been wearing. Will would probably play it off like an oversight, but Zoey knew better. He had left it behind for _her_.

He cleared his throat and palmed the clip before continuing. “While I’d wanted to keep to the shadows, to make sure all your reactions were real, I saw there was a gaping flaw in my plan after no one publicly came forward to take credit and realized they were going for the long game, trying to grease their way into our group.” He pointed at Zoey. “You were the flaw.”

Zoey blinked. “Me? How?” She asked indignantly.

Will smiled sadly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I didn’t factor in just how… _potent_ your grief would be. But after seeing the Blink of you dealing with the moron with the Raiden tech…”

Oh yeah. Zoey hadn’t even bothered changing out of her sweaty, stained pajamas for that one. Hungover, eyes red and puffy, her hair an absolute rat’s nest, she’d waltzed into that bank in her huge, fluffy slippers and courtesy of her necklace, had put the guy down without even trying to negotiate. She’d then waltzed right back outside and into the car without saying a word to anyone.

It had been so pathetic even her trolls hadn’t really driven the viewer numbers up with their vitriol.

“Seeing how you were holding up… or failing to, rather, there was a very real chance that whoever showed up, you would turn them away or set them on fire for even _trying_ to take my place. I didn’t want to spent the next several months in hiding, so I risked coming to you at the funeral home to give you an advanced warning, to ensure you allowed the meeting to take place… only to find that you had already invited Vasyl over for drinks.”

Wu snorted. “That wasn’t _all_ you came for.” He muttered wryly.

Will turned to blink over at Wu in confusion.

Zoey rolled her eyes. “Ugh, don’t even ask, it’s disgusting, and you don’t want to know. But I’ll have _you_ know the only reason I let Vasyl in was because I thought he knew something and was coming to collect on the bounty. Otherwise, yeah, I’d have probably would have told him to piss off. With my fists…”

Will slowly tore his gaze away from Wu and settled it back on the rest of the room. “Either way, it sped up my timetable drastically. Greedy little bastard couldn’t even wait until after I’d been memorialized to make his move. But revenge makes a person stupid, and I took full advantage of it. After that, it was easy enough to find out where the Ukrainians were holed up. Just a bunch of damn kids, the remnants of the mob purges and a dozen or so acolytes, chomping at the bit for revenge and a piece of the pie. So I called in a random tip to the cartels, to inform them the Ukrainians were back in town, trying to horn in on their territory. They took care of the rest.”

Will Blackwater, facilitating connections.

“Scorched earth policy,” Andre murmured appreciatively, “I like it.”

Echo shook her head, holding up a hand. “But wait, how did you manage to keep yourself off Blink all this time? No offense to your clever ingenuity but you have one of the most recognizable faces in Tabula Rasa. Even with a jammer, it was only a matter of time before someone spotted you walking around.”

Zoey thought back to the disguise Will had been wearing. “He was slumming it.” She said, looking from Will to Echo. “Where’s the one place in this city you’d never think to find him?”

There was a collective silence as they pondered that question.

“Eating bologna sandwiches down at Squattersville?” Echo guessed.

“At the Wal-Mart.” Andre offered with a wicked grin. “Buying cheap cotton-poly blend suits off the rack.”

“Yes, but no.” Will answered. “The man whose body I’d purchased, when I dressed him in my suit, I took his clothes and his phone in exchange and left the city altogether. There’s a little vagabond camp out by the industrial rail line. We pay a few of them for info every now and again, in case unwanted parties try to take the back-door route into the city.”

The Buffalo Room exploded with the sound of laughter. Will said nothing as they howled around him, banging at the table with their hands or doubling over in their chairs. Even Zoey couldn’t help herself, giggling at the mental image of _the_ Will Blackwater associating himself with a group of hobos and drifters.

“Yes, yes, laugh at my misery,” He said over them, trying to regain control, “but their disconnection to the city at large is what protected my identity.”

“Did you help them make mulligan stew and help them reorganize their rucksacks?” Budd cried laughing, nearly falling out of his chair.

Zoey covered her grin with a hand, eyes darting between Budd, face beet red with laughter, and Will, who was wearing an expression of amused annoyance.

“Yes,” Will replied matter-of-factly, “I did, and then we all hopped a train to Abilene, where we took turns banging your mom.”

That Budd stopped cold, which in turn made Echo and Andre laugh harder, and after a moment, he rejoined them, wagging a finger at Will at the well-played rejoinder.

“Now, if you’re all quite finished having a good laugh at my expense, there are still important matters I need to attend to, like unhacking my hacked medical records, before I go home to sleep in my large, luxurious bed.”

Echo wiped a tear from her eye. “Sleep, is that what you and Zoey are calling it these days?”

“Hey, joke all you want,” Zoey said, “but he’s actually pretty damn good when it comes to snuggling.” She cupped a hand over her mouth to stage whisper. “He likes to be the _little_ spoon.”

The gales of laughter began anew, but taking the hint, they all stood up, gathering their things as they quipped back and forth about Will’s snuggling technique and making plans for his back from the dead party that he probably wouldn’t even attend.

More hugs were had, threats were made about ridiculously convoluted schemes never happening again, and Echo reminded Will to end his hacked stream before he and Zoey went to _sleep_. Just another typical night with the Suits.

It felt like home again.

*~*~*

Wu made his way down the hallways of the Casa, giving every room and corridor a once over before going home. It had been an interesting day (after an emotional rollercoaster of a week) and all he wanted to do was go home to hug his family. Hug them and never let them go, lest they end up in the kind of insanity world Zoey and the Suits lived in every single day.

He turned to make his way down the back staircase that would empty him out into the garage when he heard a thump just to his left. Pausing, Wu stepped back, hand going to the knife clipped to his hip. The thump sounded again, coming from one of the massive walk-in closets Carlton used to store all the bed linens in for the second floor. He slowly reached out for the knob, quietly turning it to open the door.

Wu slammed the door shut immediately, spinning to jam his back up against it.

“ _Goddammit_ , you two! What did I tell you about this shit, Zoey?!” He shouted, the image of what he’d just seen indelibly burned into his brain.

Will on the floor, leaning back against the wall, Zoey in his lap. She had been in some weird crab position, knees under Will’s armpits, one hand planted behind her on the floor between his outstretched legs as she rode him, her other hand clamped around his mouth.

She must have been giving him the tantric torture treatment for a while because both of them had been completely drenched in sweat, Zoey’s hair damp and matted to her forehead. Will’s entire body had been flushed red from exertion or from the fact that Zoey’s hand was severely limiting his oxygen supply. He hadn’t been complaining about it, though, his hands in a death grip on Zoey’s hips.

“What are you gonna do?” Zoey called out with a breathy moan. “Come in here and stop us?”

Hanging his head, Wu closed his eyes and huffed out a laugh. Pushing himself off the door, he continued on his intended path, before curiosity had gotten the better of him.

“No,” he said to himself ruefully, “no, I wouldn’t dare.”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to spoil the plot too much in the tags, so hopefully no one is mad at me. I apologize for the extremely convoluted plot that made sense in _my_ head, and for the poor chess descriptions. While I love chess and own two different game boards, actually _trying_ to write a convincing match is _hard_.


End file.
